Hey Joe

I’ll be in Berlin in clown school when you read this.

On the website, where I found details of how to apply, and bios of the tutors (which I always find funny to read, because we all know that everyone is writing their own bio in 3^rd person, all the time), the title was actually ‘Workshop’ not ‘School’.

I told Jess and Egg that I was going to a clowning workshop in Berlin. A smile smoothed over Egg’s face and Jess goes ‘…what are you gonna do there? Like…will you juggle…?’. ‘Erm, no, not juggle. I don’t think.’ ‘Sounds like my idea of hell’ Egg said. What are you going to do at a clown workshop – I thought this was a great question from Jess, honest.

The more I think about why I wanted to apply to the workshop, which I had to elaborate on in a WhatsApp call interview with shit reception, makes me feel like ‘school’ offers the answer. I’ve been slouching toward my child self recently. Better to go that way with pride.

There’s this passage in Nuar Alsadir’s Animal Joy, a book recommended to me by a friend, which is a good sum up of what I might be working with in Berlin:

The more our concerns surround survival…the more we suppress our primal instincts and try to blend in – or, in the extreme, play dead… The social equivalant of playing dead is to put forward a façade…built around manners and protocols as opposed to spontaneous expression… | The clown is different. The clown gets up before an audience and risks letting whatever is inside them seep out’. Alsadir carries on, ‘these processes are similar to what philosopher Martin Heidegger terms aletheia, or truth as unconcealment. The clearest expression I’ve heard of aletheia came years ago, when I overheard my then three-year-old daughter call someone beautiful. I asked, What does beautiful mean? Still close to her clown self, she replied, Beautiful means most self. pp. 14-15.

I read this passage to mum without all the … one morning. The sun had only just come up and it was too early for either of us to have been affected by the weight of daytime doing. It was, although unplanned, the most perfect time of day I could have read this out loud. I put the book down. ‘That’s lovely’. There was a pause. I’m paraphrasing, but what mum said went something like ‘If we all went about being like a kid… spontaneously expressing whatever our most self wanted to express’, and now I’m not paraphrasing, ‘we would all just be like blobs on the floor’.  The bit hiding in what she said there was, ‘so, what’s the point?’. I thought this was a great question, honest.

Neither living only like the clown or only like a socialised self is the point. But knowing the clown version of yourself is there, and acting on her sometimes, is the point and the answer. As an end in itself, going to clown school, is for joy. Sounds to me like the function of a cake.

Sum up the energy of these thoughts and what you have is this Pumpkin Spice (Clown) Cake (really hoping the energy you got wasn’t boredom and/or irritation haha, if it was, congrats for getting to the end mate!) I made this cake first one day at work, and was so embarrassed by how it turned out that I put the cake in a box and hid it in the fridge. I got a voice note the next day from the generous-hearted owner of the café where I work. Turns out it went down well, so I kept making it. There’s the quick story of the clown cake.

Ingredients

for the cake

• 425g Pumpkin puree, this is one standard can you get in the supermarket
• 220g oil, sunflower or olive oil
• 340g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 medium eggs
• Scant 1/4 tsp cloves, this is a potent spice, go easy on it. Taste the batter after using to add more if you need
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger, heaped
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 400g plain flour
• 4 tsp baking powder

for the buttercream

• 110g unsalted butter, soft at room temp
• 70g cream cheese, at room temp
• 400g icing sugar
• Splash of vanilla
• Pinch of salt

Method

Pre heat the oven to 180 / 165 fan. Grease and line two 9 inch/23cm round tins. This cake is so fast to put together, I would give the oven 15 mins to heat up before starting to make the batter.

In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs and spices. Add the flour and baking powder to the bowl and mix well to combine. Pour the batter into the prepared tins, making sure there is an equal amount in each. Bake for 20 mins, turn the cakes in the oven, and bake for a further 8 – 11 mins. The cakes should be evenly brown/orange and spring back to the touch.

When the cakes have cooled, make the icing. To avoid any curdling, we’ll mix the icing sugar and cream cheese in two parts. In a large bowl, beat the butter with an electric whisk until just lighter in colour. Add 50g cream cheese, 200g icing sugar, the salt and vanilla and beat to form a thick paste. Now add the rest of the icing sugar (200g) and cream cheese (20g) and beat for about 2 mins, until light and fluffy. If you’re feeling confident you can just throw all the ingredients for the buttercream in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk for about 3 mins.

To put it together, level the dome off one of the cakes, save the bit you cut off, this will be your crumb top. Spread half the buttercream over the cake you just levelled and place the second cake on top. If you want to commit to getting the look of this cake, this is the time to carfeully carve off a very thin layer around the outer edge of the sandwiched cake, revealing the inner crumb, and saving the off cuts as a treat for yourself. Of course, you can skip that part. Top the cake with the rest of the buttercream. Crumble up the dome you saved from the base layer of cake. For the final touch, pile the finished cake with your cake crumbs.

The finished cake will keep in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days (it won’t last that long).

Love from Berlin. Caitlin xx

Hi Joe,

There are two things on my mind as I start writing this.

It’s beginning to feel like autumn in Glasgow, the air is smelling cold and I like it. Mum said she always feels a sense of new beginning in these times. Maybe because she spent most of her life in a job that starts again every September. My September isn’t a fresh start how I’m used to, there are no more classes to go to. Sick. Haha. Still, the cold mud smell of autumn has coated Glasgow’s floor with a fresh autumn carpet. It’s quite nice, soft on the feet and sparking a desire for comfort in the evenings, nutty tasting things and bedside lamps switched on.

I love bedside lamps for their glow. I love how they instantly create a pocket of light you can dip in and out of.

The other thing I have on my mind is how I can make these letters to you feel less like they need to be perfect.

Sometimes perfect is absolutely perfect. Very necessary, even. Like, if you are sharing a recipe for a cake with a lot of people. These times ‘perfect’ is a measure of precision. Sometimes though, perfection is something you are seeking, and it’s less about accuracy. These times ‘perfect’ is a measure of satisfaction. Most often, this is a search for the most above average level of satisfaction I know to exist.

So one finger up to that kind of perfect, here’s a new kind of post. I made this cake once, from the memory of drinking cognac at night, in candle light, the rustic kind of bedside light, with a feeling of new beginnings and a sweet, nutty taste on my tongue.

Ingredients

For the Pastry

• 90g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
• 175g plain flour
• 30g caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon cold water

For the Cake Filling

• 190g dried prunes and figs
• 50g cognac
• 150g butter, softened
• 150g sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• salt and lemon zest to taste
• 3 medium eggs
• 165g ground almonds
• 80g plain flour

Method

In a large bowl rub the butter through the flour sugar and salt until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and cold water. Use a knife to begin clumping the mixture together, finishing off with your hands until you have a ball of pastry. Shape into a disk and put in the freezer for 15 mins.

Pre heat the oven to 180/160 fan. Grease an 8inch round cake tin, if you use a tart case make sure it is a deep one. Roll out the pastry to about the thickness of a pound coin. Use a dinner plate bigger than the tin to trace a circle out the pastry. Line this into the greased tin, the pastry will come up the sides of the tin a little.

Blind bake the pastry case for 15 minutes. To do this, cover the pastry with greaseproof paper, then pour baking beans, rice or lentils over the paper to weigh everything down. After 15 mins, remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans/rice or lentils and bake for another 5 mins. Remove from the oven but keep the oven on.

Roughly chop the dried fruit and put in a small saucepan with the cognac. Bring to a simmer then turn the heat off, cover, and allow to infuse while you make the frangipane. (Possibly the two most autumnal sentences I have ever written).

In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar, vanilla, salt and lemon zest until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, ground almonds and flour in one and mix until just combined. Tip in the cognac and fruit and mix through the frangipane before scraping into the pastry lined tin. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

Speak soon, Poe. Caitlin x